The Art of Grieving
by vanishingact
Summary: He had survived, but what was left to live for? George based


I have a Bright Eyes reference in here, so I suppose I should add that to the implied disclaimer? I'm sure you all understand that no one on this site really owns anything he writes about, so I won't bother.  
I may write a few more chapters, each focusing on a different remaining character, if I want. But I kind of don't want to pollute this site with any more crap writing. But if you find this appealing, just tell me so and I'll divert my attention from my obsessive Law & Order watching.  
Also, if you have any good stories of this nature, please tell me! I like this topic. I feel kind of bad about that, Fred being my favorite character, but it can just be so darn appealing. I am not so sure as the why. But let me tell you, I am very excited to see the seventh movie in two years.  
I'm going to let you go, now. I hope you like it a little.

* * *

The room was just as they had left it; the familiar mess of papers on the desk, the traditional rumpled sheets at the foot of the bed. Everything was the same, and yet so much more unyieldingly empty. People walked the streets below, not caring to look up at the window above the little joke shop, unaware of the dark silhouette against the panes. And why would they? After all, it was time to celebrate their freedom. Life would resume. The world would keep turning, though George could have sworn that it had crashed down around him in cold, cold silence when he saw the body stretched across the table. Fred's body.

George walked through the bedroom they had shared, barely breathing, as if afraid to break the comforting air of normalcy that filled what had once been their home. But home was where they would come back to at the end of the day. Home was where they would sleep side by side, just to know the other was safe. Home was Fred.

Shaking, pale fingers undid the buttons of his clothes and let them fall to the floor. George clapped a hand over his mouth when he saw the bloodstains that sullied the material. He would never wear those robes again. Wincing at the sour taste rising in his throat, George ran clumsily to the bathroom and vomited. Whose blood was it? The very thought made him sick. Rinsing out his mouth, his breath hitched when he looked up into the mirror above the sink. Fred? No, Fred was dead. George's own reflection stared back warily.

"What now?" the image whispered. George stared into his reflection's face with blank eyes.

"We move on. We rebuild," he replied. That was what everyone else was doing, anyway.

"So you're just going to forget about him?" the mirror hissed, narrowing its eyes.

"No! Of course I won't-"

"You're pathetic!" the image screamed. "Why didn't you save him, _Georgie?_ He was always there for you, wasn't he? And where were _you_ when he _died? You are nothing without Fred!"_

"Don't say his name," George moaned, covering his ears from the truths he could not bear to voice himself.

_"FRED FRED FRED FRE-"_ the reflection howled, tears streaming down its cheeks, silenced only when George's fist smashed against the glass, shattering the face he and Fred had shared into jagged, broken pieces. He fell to the floor and curled his fingers around the shards that littered the floor, hot tears flowing freely from his tightly squeezed eyes.

_"Fred... Fred..." _he breathed, _"it feels like I'm dying"_

George's fingers fumbled numbly at the glass and clumsily wrapped his hand around a long sliver, before rising on shaky knees to return to the bedroom and collapsing onto the mattress. Breathing in the familiar scent, George curled on his side and brought his knees tightly against his ribs at the crushing pain inside his chest.

He just wanted to feel something, anything, but the thick numbness of grief inside.

George stared down at his counterpart that lay refracted in his hand. He could barely stand to look at himself.

_"It hurts so much."_

Sliding his naked body between the cool sheets, he withheld a whimper from the back of his throat as he remembered approaching the table where his own embodied reflection lay dead. No jokes, no laughter. Cold, colorless skin like pale canvas stretched over fragile bones, he had thought as he traced his fingertips over the corners of Fred's lingering smile. This past day alone, George felt as if he had aged one hundred years. And that brought him here. The remaining twin pressed the jagged blade against his abdomen, exhaling shakily as a small bead of blood erupted onto his pale skin, rolling slowly onto the white sheets below.

He just wanted it to all stop.

So he had survived the war. It didn't seem like such a feat to him now. What was left living for? _Cut. _His family, to which he would always be an identical reminder as to what they had lost? _Pierce. _His business, which had succeeded only by the passion of two brothers together? _Slice. _No, without Fred, he was nothing but a waste of breath, of space, of time. George dragged the serrated edge across his chest, staring up at the nondescript ceiling with unseeing eyes. Inside, he pleaded that Fred could hear him.

_"This,"_ he thought desperately, twisting the glass point into his flesh, _"is my existence without you."_

George tightened his fingers around the glass with an empty air of finality, blood dripping from his fingers down the length of his wrist. Shutting his eyes, he placed the jagged contour against the side of his neck and slowly pressed the edge deeper into the confines of his flesh.

_"This is the pain you left me." _

He firmed his grip on the implement, slicked with scarlet, and administered more pressure, willing it to go in further past the resistant muscle. Tears poured even more heavily from beneath his clenched eyelids at his own futility. George clamped his teeth together, and with the last shred of strength he possessed, gave the blade a sharp pull across his throat.

_"I am nothing without you."_

And it was silent.


End file.
